The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-I) classified homosexuality as a mental illness beginning in 1952. Before then, psychiatrists and psychologists looked at homosexuality as a perversion and as a deviant behavior, but the idea that it was a mental illness was considerably more controversial. Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, famously wrote to one American mother in 1935, “Homosexuality is assuredly no advantage, but it is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation, it cannot be classified as an illness.”

But by the early 1950’s American society’s view of homosexuality took a very sharp turn toward the dark side. This turn was partly sparked by the loud controversy stirred by Alfred Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Male in 1948. Where before, homosexuality was little talked about; now it seemed suddenly to be everywhere. In the minds of Americans across the country, homosexuality now joined the other emerging threat, communism, as two great menaces to American order. By 1952, there had already been several purges of gays from federal employment. With the APA’s addition of homosexuality to its list of mental disorders, the fates of gays and lesbians would be sealed for the next two decades.

And as is always true in the medical and psychiatric fields, where there is an illness, there’s a quest for a cure. This was true for homosexuality long before 1952, and unfortunately it is still true today in some unenlightened circles. For the most part, the cure consisted of ordinary forms of talk therapy. But other, more abusive forms of therapy — namely electric shock therapy or therapies involving severe nausea-inducing drugs — weren’t exactly rare. And, of course, as long as gays and lesbians were labeled “mentally ill,” all manner of discrimination was made possible against those who officially declared to be operating under a mental impairment.

Thirty-five years ago today, on December 15, 1973, all of that began to change when the American Psychiatric Association’s Board of Trustees “cured” millions of gays and lesbians across America when they voted to pass this resolution (PDF: 464KB/5 pages):

For a mental or psychiatric condition to be considered a psychiatric disorder, it must either regularly cause subjective distress, or regularly be associated with some generalized impairment in social effectiveness or functioning. With the exception of homosexuality (and perhaps some of the other sexual deviations when in mild form, such as voyeurism), all of the other mental disorders in DSM-1 fulfill either of these two criteria. (While one may argue that the personality disorders are an exception, on reflection it is clear that it is inappropriate to make a diagnosis of a personality disorder merely because of the presence of certain typical personality traits which cause no subjective distress or impairment in social functioning. Clearly homosexuality, per se, does not meet the requirements for a psychiatric disorder since, as noted above, many homosexuals are quite satisfied with their sexual orientation and demonstrate no generalized impairment in social effectiveness or functioning.

The only way that homosexuality could therefore be considered a psychiatric disorder would be the criteria of failure to function heterosexually, which is considered optimal in our society and by many members of our profession. However, if failure to function optimally in some important area of life as judged by either society or the profession is sufficient to indicate the presence of a psychiatric disorder, then we will have to add to our nomenclature the following conditions: celibacy (failure to function optimally sexually), revolutionary behavior (irrational defiance of social norms), religious fanaticism (dogmatic and rigid adherence to religious doctrine), racism (irrational hatred of certain groups), vegetarianism (unnatural avoidance of carnivorous behavior), and male chauvinism (irrational belief in the inferiority of women).

The New York Times alerted the world with this Page One announcement:

The American Psychiatric Association, altering a position it has held for nearly a century, decided today that homosexuality is not a mental disorder. The board of trustees of the 20,000 member organization approved a resolution that said in part, “by itself, homosexuality does not meet the criteria for being a psychiatric disorder.” Persons who are troubled by their homosexuality, the trustees said, will be classified as having a “sexual orientation disturbance” should they come to a psychiatrist for help.

The full APA would go on to ratify the policy statement on April 9, 1974. But attempts to cure homosexuality would continue under a new illness inserted into the DSM as a compromise in 1974. Sexual Orientation Disturbance (SOD) defined homosexuality as an illness if an individual with same sex attractions found those attractions distressing and wanted to change. The new diagnosis served the purpose of legitimizing the practice of sexual conversion therapies, even if homosexuality per se was no longer considered an illness. The SOD diagnosis also allowed for the unlikely possibility that a person unhappy about a heterosexual orientation could seek treatment to become gay. Reflecting the realities of clinical practice, 1980’s DSM-III changed SOD to “Ego Dystonic Homosexuality” (EDH). That diagnosis was finally removed in 1987, but resurfaced as a brief mention under “Sexual Disorders Not Otherwise Specified”, which describes persistent and marked distress about one’s sexual orientation.

Update: The last paragraph describing subsequent diagnoses was revised and clarified, with thanks to Dr. Jack Drescher.

Ironically a few years later the APA took the extremely reactionary step of making Transsexuality a mental illness thereby stigmatizing people born transsexual with the same burdens that had been removed from L/G folks.

Thanks so much for that APA quote! It’s insightful to their motivation.

I think the DSM’s influence is overrated. As Jim said, cures were attempted long before the DSM labeled it a disorder and have continued after removing the label. Discrimination was and is based on homophobia which pays no heed to science. All that is true for transexuals too.

Whoa, SuzyQ, let’s look at practice practicalities. Everything in the health care system is run be those pesky DSM generated numbers. Every physical and mental condition has a number. Insurance will not pay for services without a number. Hospitals will not allow doctors to admit patients without a number and so on.

For a doctor to start medical treatment, the person needs counseling and evaluation. Gotta have a DSM number for the referral. Before that first estrogen prescription, gotta have a number. To admit someone to the hospital for what otherwise would seem like unnecessary surgery, gotta have a number for that, too.

So while these designations may evoke negative reactions, in order to receive medical treatment, these designations are required for any services to be provided at all.

Suzy, not to get too far from the base here, but lets look at this line.

“For a mental or psychiatric condition to be considered a psychiatric disorder, it must either regularly cause subjective distress, or regularly be associated with some generalized impairment in social effectiveness or functioning.”

Are you willing to say that transsexualism does not “regularly cause subjective distress”?

I know every day until treatment, hard coded medical treatment, my transsexual friends cannot get over the hump of their disorder. Casual cross dressing didn’t solve their problems, having their friends and loved ones treat them as their desired gender didn’t solve their problems. They needed medical intervention. Even my non-op friends usually need hormones and/or cosmetic procedures, electrology, mastectomy, orcindectomies, thercial shaves, breast augmentation. . . and before you compair this to a teenager who will die without a nose job, like so many of the surgery on demand people do, the needs of these surgeries go to the core of their identity.

Now then how about the second part are you going to tell me that untreated transsexuals don’t regularly suffer “generalized impairment in social effectiveness or functioning.”

When not under treatment, transexuals are often left outside of socity, facing a form of dissasoiated disorder. They can’t connect properly with people, when they do they are often plauged with doubts. They suffer for their problem and it effects their social function. While I’ll admit that while many “pre-discovery” transsexuals have great lives, it is generated by a need to prove they are not broken, then when the “discovery” process starts how many end up systematically destroying their old life? That alone mimics a good many disorders. Sure some of the problems are generated by ignorance and negative impressions, but many come from the transsexual themselves who suddenly find themselves in a new adolescence as they must re-learn their lives, while facing the emotional distress caused by a pharmacological soup and physical distress of multiple medical procedures and the social stress of huge financial burden.

To compare if a person suffered a head injury or stroke, that forced them back into adolescence, forced them to re-learn every aspect of their lives, could only be treated through heavily pharmaceuticals and painful/expensive surgical procedure, we would not blink at recognizing that they suffered an illness. Yet because of the political burden of the trans issue, people want to cast such suffering people, many of whom are teenagers or pre-teens, to the four winds.

Suzy, I understand the stigmatization. I grew up at a time when homosexuality was considered a mental disorder that was treated and supposedly cured. I bought into that ideology for far, far too long. Last year I nearly took my own life.

I tend to understand the caution of the medical community, including psychiatrists, when it comes to the trans-sexual issue ….. surgery and reconstructive surgery is radical and should not be entered into without considerable thought and reflection.

Gee… I came out before Stonewall. Ran the National Transsexual Counseling Unit in SF between 1971-73.

Indeed I was a patient of Dr. Benjamin who coined the term Transsexual. I picketed the APA conference at the Jack Tar to protest the labeling of L/G as mental illness.

All this was years before the APA turned the thingie in Deuteronomy that makes trannies an abomination into our version of what they did to gays with the Leviticus abomination. They manufactured a psychiatric illness called GID. This is faith based pathology. GID is also what Foucault would call a pure social construct.

I had an innate condition called transsexualism, more intersex than psychological.

The psychiatric profession has created more scams to bilk insurance companies than virtually any other branch of the health industry.

Before they disempowered us we used to run our own peer to peer groups.

As for sex reassignment surgery being “radical” humm?? I never saw it that way. But then I saw those parts as a useless deformity.

BTW I realize that there isn’t that much inter tribal communication in the LGBT/T world.

The reality is that we might as I said at the LA Christopher Street West Celebration in 1974 get together for a parade but most of the rest of the year we are off in our own communities.

I’m a radical old woman on my blog, http://womanrebel.blogspot.com I describe myself as anarcha-feminist and my range of issues are far broader than trans-specific ones. Same sex marriage is one, unionization and worker’s rights are others.

However there is one trans-issue I am involved in and that is the same issue I marched with L/G folks on 35 years ago. Transsexualism is not a psychiatric disorder but is a fiction made up by some pretty anti-LGBT/T people.

Also many of those who are pushing the hardest to keep GID in the DSM are associated with reparative therapy on queer kids and such organizations as NARTH.

I will accept that it may not be a “mental disorder”, but you have a long way to go to establish that brain/body divide. Even if you could, you can’t honestly claim that there isn’t a medical condition that needs medical treatment.

What ever you want to call this condition, physical, mental, biological it is only “socially” constructed in the sense that gender is socially constructed and it still cannot be proven that “Transsexualism” would not exist in a society with full gender fluidity, since we have no real way to be sure if it is the physical sex or the gender identity that has to match the brain “sex”.

This whole problem is fundamentally different then the medical tagging of homosexuality because there is no “non-medical” solution for most transsexuals. You can’t talk it away, you can’t pray it away, you can’t just accept it and move on. You need to medically intervene. You need to mess around with body chemistry, you need to physically alter key functions of physical anatomy, you need to alter both internal and external perceptions. This isn’t fixed by “accepting” that you are just a guy/gal, unless you want to force them into a lifetime of hell. So without a medical name, diagnosis, and treatment path, where is a transsexual left to turn?

I can’t argue that there are those who would use the diagnosis against others, but there are those who use depression, bi-polar, and schizophrenia against others. Yet all these, like Transsexualism, can be treated and when they are the person is no different then anyone else. Also like transsexualism the root problem never fully goes away, it’s always a lifetime a of treatment and care. The solution isn’t to remove medical diagnosis and leave people flopping around without help. The solution is to remove the negative stigma attached to having such a diagnosis.

It’s funny because right now the same “remove the metal illness” game is being played with Asperger’s. A growing contingent of people want to remove the stigma of having a “mental disorder” and be treated just like everyone else. Yet the funny thing is having worked closely with a person who suffered Asperger’s if it wasn’t for the fact that he had a mental disorder he would have been fired on his third day at work. Of course talking with him I heard this similar argument, “they don’t have a problem it’s just an inflexible social system that doesn’t understand them.”

If a person with Apergers’ cannot function in his job, he does not need the protection of a mental illness, he needs a job more appropriate to his peculiar skills. (And that’s not just data processing) I have high-functioning Aspergers’, but if you suggest I suffer from it be glad this blog is anonymous. Aspergers’ is best thought of as a different set of innate abilities.
And any cure for autism or Aspergers’ (as opposed to therapies to help them function socially) is like a vaccine against atheism.

Transsexuality isn’t a mental disorder. And psychiatry bears only a vague connection to science.

“So without a medical name, diagnosis, and treatment path, where is a transsexual left to turn?”

The name of what I was born with is transsexualism or HBS Harry Benjamin Syndrome and they are discovering that it has several genetic markers.

Further you speak like all outsiders to having the condition.

Life time of treatment and care is total BS. Most of us in the late 1960s and early 70s prior to the APA socially constructing us in to the mental illness model only saw psychiatrists as part of the screening process to insure we didn’t have a mental disorder.

This is quite a reversal to go from having to demonstrate I wasn’t mentally ill to people now having to demonstrate they have a mental illness.

At any rate there are the same sort of organizations lead by women born transsexual and men born transsexual WBT/MBT to remove GID from the DSM as there were L/G people who fought to remove homosexuality back when.

BTW I recall those in the homophile movement who argued it was better to be considered sick than perverted.

Bill Ware said,
“Whoa, SuzyQ, letâ€™s look at practice practicalities. Everything in the health care system is run be those pesky DSM generated numbers. Every physical and mental condition has a number. Insurance will not pay for services without a number.”

The fact is, the psychiatric DSM for transsexualism excludes far more people from care that it enables. Most good gender counselors don’t use it, as it sends up too many flags. With the exception of some psychiatrist visits (frequently NOT coded under transsexuality) most U.S. transsexuals foot the bill at all stages. Many, if not most, complete medical transition following WPATH standards without anyone in the medical system ever making or recording a DSM transsexual diagnosis. (Hormones and surgeries typically require letters from the caregivers) The lifetime outlook for these individuals is no different that someone that has come to terms with their homosexuality, (or for that matter, their heterosexuality) no better, no worse,

Your own words and those in other comments make the case for the stigmatization of transsexuals as having a higher incidence of functional impediments related to transsexuality vs gays having impediments as a result of coming to terms with homosexualty. There is no basis in scientific fact for that belief. You fell into the stigma trap, set by the original, faith based, DSM authors and those current groups like NARTH that would perpetuate the belief.

We all know individual that have struggled in life, straight, gay, transsexual, etc. We should all know better that to generalize that to a population.

A few large corporations are just beginning to cover the medical costs to treat transsexualism, but removal of the psychiatric DSM has won’t reverse this positive trend.

I am not the expert in this area,(Dr. Winters is: http://gidreform.org/) but, make no mistake, for U.S. transsexuals, the psychiatric DSM for transsexualism will not be missed one bit. Except it may help to dispel the stigma that exists, even within the LGBT community!

I wish your comments were true, then the nature of the debate might be different, but it is simply not the state of transsexual treatment in America at this time.

Kith writes: “… Are you willing to say that transsexualism does not â€œregularly cause subjective distressâ€? … When not under treatment, transexuals are often left outside of socity, facing a form of dissasoiated (sic) disorder. They canâ€™t connect properly with people, when they do they are often plauged (sic) with doubts. … ”

I’m willing to say what I think you mean. I will say distress is caused not by transsexualism, but by ostracism from society and by transphobia. No-one likes being hatred for no good reason. But to tar a person with a mental diagnosis because they are hated is, quite simply, wicked and amoral. Zucker and his ilk are wicked and amoral.

In fact the DSM-IV-TR directly addresses this issue , see page xxxi, first paragraph in pertinent part “… Neither deviant behavior (e.g., political, religious, or SEXUAL) nor conflicts primarily between the individual and society are psychiatric disorders, unless the deviance or conflict is a symptom of dysfunction in the individual, as described above. …” (EMPHASIS added)

Thus, by the DSM’s own words. GID is NOT a psychiatric disorder (and should be removed from the DSM manual).

De-psychopathologization of GID and transsexualism will help greatly, as it did to homosexuality 35 years ago as of yesterday. It is mere scaremongering to suggest that treatments ALREADY PROVEN SUCCESSFUL will be abandoned merely because voodoo psychiatry is at last debunked.

I’m perfectly willing to admit that my transsexualism regularly causes subjective distress not related to conflict with society. That does account for about half of it, but the other half is due to direct conflict with my own body, not because of how others perceive me because of it.

On the other hand, the numb spot on my finger where I have nerve damage from a power tool accident causes subjective distress due to a conflict with my own body. So did the cyst I had on my backside, until I finally had it removed a couple of years ago, and the ganglion cysts in my hand and wrist, and the twinges I get from time to time from an old ankle sprain. So, for the sake of logical consistency, are you going to also insist these qualify as mental disorders, for which I should require a DSM code before I can get any kind of treatment?

I’m pretty sure Stephen Hawking’s ALS regularly causes him subjective distress due to conflict with his own body. So is that a mental disorder, too?

As for Asperger’s, without knowing much more about it than has been said here (though probably more than the average person in the street), I would have no problem backing its removal from the DSM. As far as I’m concerned, that book is largely a tool for the systematic pathologization and stigmatization of human variation.

Oh, and Kith? You’re right, technically SRS does fit the medical definition of “radical.” But that has nothing to do with Swampfox’s original use of the term, meaning “drastic, alarming, not to be undertaken lightly.” By the medical (i.e. your) definition, the removal of the cyst from my backside was “radical” surgery, because she took the entire thing out, curing the problem permanently–even though it was done in her office, in five minutes, under local anaesthetic and I was able to sit on it immediately afterward with only mild discomfort (not much worse than the cyst itself). I find a lot of confusion and miscommunication arises from using a term two “radically” different ways like this without being aware of it, so I thought I’d better point that out.

As for Swampfox’s original concern, of course; no invasive surgery should be undertaken lightly, without adequate thought and reflection. SuzyQ’s point was simply that to her it didn’t seem like any big dilemma as to whether to get it done or not.

You have to realize that most transsexuals will have been thinking and reflecting about this very thing since childhood, and aren’t doing it on any kind of whim. Why should the medical community, psychiatrists in particular, be any more concerned with how transsexuals decide to have corrective surgery than anyone else with a disfiguring birth defect or an annoying growth? Should a person born with harelip, for example, and who wants reconstructive surgery, be required to submit to a diagnosis of a mental disorder, then forced to spend a couple of years in therapy or seeing a psychiatrist, and a year or two wearing a prosthetic upper lip in public to make sure it’s right for them, before allowing it?

Just because the doctor or psychiatrist isn’t empathic or open-minded enough to understand, doesn’t somehow make the surgery any more “radical” (drastic, alarming, not to be undertaken lightly). It certainly isn’t so to the transsexual, at least for many of us–not all that different from breast reduction surgery for women who need it to relieve their back pain, really. And in any case it’s not anyone else’s decision to make, is it? The whole system as it exists now, thanks to the DSM classification, is patronizing and condescending at best.

Personally, I wouldn’t object to a medical classification on par with, say, harelip, cleft palate, or even medically-indicated breast reduction surgery, if it’s really needed for insurance coverage purposes. The point is, it doesn’t belong in the DSM any more than those other diagnoses do; it’s not a “mental disorder” by any reasonable definition of that term, and the effect of that classification has proven to be far more harmful than beneficial.

The reason the APA dropped homosexuality from its list of mental disorders was that there was absolutely no evidence that being gay is a mental disorder. They had a definition of mental disorder, but to make it stick for gay people they had to ignore their own definiton, and say that “Of course. Gay people are mentally disordered BY definiton. Just not THIS definiton.” It could not hold up to any kind of scientific scrutiny. The really homophobic psychiatrists, like Bieber and Soccarides (father of a gay son!!!), the ones who earned their living “curing” gay people, tried to force a referendum on the APA, but it also failed. The whole procedure underlined that prejudice was really the defining issue, not homosexuality, as is often the case on this particular issue. (Not surprisingly, religious reactions to gay people are very similar). First, a whole category of people is defined as mentally ill (or particularly sinful) with no scientific or experiential (or biblical) reason to do so, only a cultural and religious prejudice. They they have a vote, and presto-change-o, a whole category of people are “cured” overnight. Then, the people who whose livelihood depend on the the “mental illness” issue try to make another vote to make all of those people “sick” again. Clearely, not a matter of good science or good medicine, just prejudice. You might call it the politics of diagnosis. There is a great book on the whole fiasco called “Homosexcuaility and American Psychiatry” by Ronald Bayer. It’s a great read.

Funny they don’t mention that they didn’t make one study to overturn their distinction of homosexuality being a mental disorder… rather it was the constant badgering of the APA members that finally forced their vote.

Its like if all serial killers or rapists started protesting till they were deemed normal without a confirmation study.

Will, there were many studies starting with Evelyn Hooker’s work in the 1950’s that showed gayness wasn’t a mental disorder.

What makes your comment particularly ironic was that there wasn’t one study done to show that gayness was a mental disorder in the first place, it was just assumed to be out of longstanding tradition of assuming it was a mental disorder.

@Will: You are correct that the declassification of homosexuality as a mental disorder was a result of protests. However, you are incorrect that the protests and the decision that followed were not motivated by scientific studies.

Priya is correct that Evelyn Hooker’s study was a major factor in the APA’s decision to remove homosexuality from the DSM-III. A nice summary of the decision, and its reasons, can be found here.

Specifically, this part:

Bayer’s [9] listing of the relevant scientific information follows:

The human sexuality studies of Alfred Kinsey and his colleagues that showed surprisingly high prevalence rates (37%) for homosexual activity among males, suggesting that it may represent a normal variation in sexual behavior [10,11].

Anthropologist Clellan Ford and psychologist Frank Beach’s [12] demonstration that prohibitions against homosexual behavior are not universal nor is the behavior limited to human beings.

Psychologist Evelyn Hooker’s [13] findings that homosexual men are indistinguishable from a matched sample of heterosexual men with respect to psychopathology and that many homosexual parings can be classified as long-term and committed relationships rather than short term and compulsively driven relationships.

Two additional considerations also influenced psychiatrists to change their minds about homosexuality’s classification. First, the protestors highlighted cases of social discrimination based on sexual orientation that were “justified” by claims that homosexuality was a mental disorder. This shocked some psychiatrists, who viewed their profession as playing a progressive role in defining homosexuality as a disorder rather than a moral failing subject to prosecution and imprisonment.

A second consideration was information gained from personal encounters with homosexuals, especially gay psychiatrists. Such encounters began to occur publically at the 1971 APA meeting. Research in social psychology has consistently demonstrated that positive personal encounters reduce negative attitudes about outgroups [14].

I’m a cis-gendered gay man who was tortured by psychologists in the name of Christian beliefs.
It didn’t change my sexual orientation one bit – my sense of self was too strong for even those monsters to succeed – but it did leave me with a great deal of skepticism for the ‘soft’ sciences and total disdain for Christian psychologists.
Graduate school and professional work in the natural sciences did the rest to dispel any faith I might have come to hold in the value of this mumbo-jumbo ‘science’. Psychology falls in that broad range of ‘medical arts’ which can, at times, be, perhaps, of highly limited value to some people. Mainly, though, it’s just made up nonsense masquerading used to impose heteronormative standards on queers.

As for the whole approach to our transgender brothers and sisters, my experience with friends before and after transition has left me with one conclusion: The only sick thing is the way our medical and social-science driven professional communities treat perfectly healthy people who happen to have the wrong anatomy for their true self.
I’d be just as eager to have my anatomical body line up with my true self if it didn’t now as any non-cisgender person is. That’s not a-normal, that’s normal, for me and for them.
Oh, and, Will? Might I suggest you try that new-fangled thing-y called ‘the google’? You’ll find it quite useful.

“Psychology falls in that broad range of â€˜medical artsâ€™ which can, at times, be, perhaps, of highly limited value to some people. Mainly, though, itâ€™s just made up nonsense masquerading used to impose heteronormative standards on queers.”.

That may have been true to a degree 40 years ago but certainly has no valididity today. The major mental health organizations have been highly supportive of LGBT people and most definately do not support imposing heteronormative standards on gays or lesbians.

You need to get your head out of the ancient past and recognize that the world has changed drastically since you were abused.

Priya Lynn,
I sometimes wonder, were I to say ‘it’s Friday’, whether you wouldn’t immediately respond: It’s after Thursday and not yet Saturday.
Sure, there have been some improvements in some fields of this ‘soft’ science.
That’s a good thing.
Unfortunately, though, it’s still far too much of a philosophy driven, anecdotal inspired social-science. I am glad to see the changes which have occurred, but one need only look at the nonsense about what percent of the population we gay men represent to see how much of the field is still dominated by people who assume that sound reasoning is the same as valid reasoning.
The introduction of genuine science based research techniques and the discipline of standardized publication methods have helped. Then again, we just had dear Dr. Regnerus follow all the rules (the peer reviewers can still be the authors of the study in this
‘soft’ science to name but one major departure from natural science).

Give it a few centuries and maybe psychology will someday be empirical and not anecdotal. At the moment, it;s not medical science, it’s a medical art, on the same level as holistic color therapy.

Incest or inbreeding has also been observed in nature. Cannibalism is also found among animals so natural argument is poor.Using animals as a guide to how people should behave is a bad idea.

The pro-gay pschologists say rubbish such as when they say Jerry A. Sandusky is not gay which proves bias meddles with facts when you say a homosexual pedophile is not a homosexual. It depends on your definition, if 1 does not define a person who has same sex relations with a young boy as gay, then they call him straight or something else. Though itâ€™s repeat it must be said again. A person is homosexual or lesbian if they knowingly and willing do same sex behaviors. If a person has homosexual activities with a young boy, then they are a homosexual pedofile. Jerry A. Sandusky is a homosexual pedofile-even if J.A. Sandusky calls himself straight, he would still be gay by behavior definition. But homosexual groups say that he is not gay when his conduct defines him as such.The priests who molest young boys are gay pedophiles. If a man has sex with little girls only, then he is a straight pedophile. Rush H. Limbaughâ€™s right when he said Jerry A. Sandusky is gay-and columnist Patrick J. Buchanan condemns who he calls gay priests. Those priests are again gay pedophiles, pederasts or homolesters. So there are many homosexual pedophiles such as the gay priests, Jerry A. Sandusky.

Again, itâ€™s sexual conduct or behavior which defines if 1 is straight or homosexual. Since homosexuals and lesbians (transexuals) often suffered childhood sex abuse, itâ€™s no surprise that homosexuals and lesbians think childhood sexual abuse is OK when itâ€™s homosexual activities. All homosexual pedofiles are homosexuals. All transexuals are homosexual/lesbian as the act of mutilating to become false opposite sex is itself an act of homosexuality/lesbianism-sad maiming and make this illegal. homosexual groups got offended when columnist Patrick J. Buchanan condemned gay priests. What those priests did when they molest young boys is homosexuality.

There is something wrong with a man thinking he is a woman or a woman thinking she is a man. It is mutilation with dangerous hormones. Most transexuals were sexually abused in childhood which messed up their minds and transexuals sexually abuse children. Transexuals are mutilated gays and lesbians. I donâ€™t care what others say but mutilating a man or woman to make them fake members of opposite sex is gay/lesbian. And gay/lesbian groups are apologists for Transexuals which is why the word T is there. They must abolish this surgical mutilation.

All transexuals are homosexual/lesbian as the act of mutilating to become false opposite sex is itself an act of homosexuality/lesbianism-sad maiming and make this illegal. Finally, sex change maimings which is mutilating some1 to make them fake members of opposite sex is comparable to trying to make a man a fake animal because he thinks he is an animal trapped in a human body. Most feminists are not speaking against this. 1 would hope that feminists would oppose the mutilation that happened to Chastity Sun Bono as feminists have spoken against Female Genital Mutilation which happens in some nations. Transexuals are mutilations which no Dr. should take part in, yet most feminists are not condemning this female genital and breast mutilation as what happened to Chastity S. Bono where her healthy breasts were mutilated, dangerous hormone shots and her genitals mutilated.

Abian, you are correct that a behavior existing in nature does not justify humans doing it. We point out that gayness exists in nature merely because many people claime it does not exist in nature and this proves it is unethical – this is incorrect.

What determiness whether or not a behavior is moral is whether or not it hurts others. Any act that does not hurt others is moral. So, gayness is moral whereas other bahaviors that exist in nature such as canibalism and incest are immoral.

You are mistaken when you say a person’s behavior determines if person is gay or heterosexual. What determines a person’s sexual orientation is the gender(s) of people they are attracted to. Many people who are not same sex attracted have engaged in same sex behavior for reasons that have nothing to do with attraction, just as many people who are exclusively same sex attracted have engaged in heterosexual acts in order to fit in with societal expectations.

Just because a pedophile’s victim is the same sex does not mean a pedophile is gay. Many pedophiles are attracted to the lack of secondary sexual characteristics in children such as pubic hair, beards, breasts and so on. Most pedophiles whose victims are male say they were attracted to the hairlessness and other feminine features of their male victims. They are not attracted to maleness itself and so are not gay. Much of pedophilia has to do with opportunity so a pedophile that would be just as likely to molest a girl as a boy may only have male victims because people do not trust adult males with girls but do allow them access to boys so the male pedophiles victims male gender is a matter of opportunity, not choice.

Further, studies show that almost all male pedophiles (pedophelia by females is quite rare) consider themselves heterosexual and are in adult sexual relationships with women. So, when peopple make the claim that the majority of pedophilia is performed by gays and gays are many many times more likely to be pedophiles than heterosexuals they are wrong as virtually no men who identify themselves as gay have ever had sex with a child. Almost all pedophiles belong to the 90% or more of people considered heterosexual.

As with other issues, what determines whether or not transexuality is moral is the question of whether not it hurts others. As it does not sex changes are perfectly moral. This differs greatly from female genital mutilation in that the victims of female genital mutilation do not do it by choice, it is forced or coerced upon them by others and as such it harms them and is immoral.

So, of course it naturally follows that many feminists who oppose female genital mutilation are not opposed to people having sex reassignment surgery of their own volition.

It depends on your definition, if 1 does not define a person who has same sex relations with a young boy as gay, then they call him straight or something else. Though itâ€™s repeat it must be said again. A person is homosexual or lesbian if they knowingly and willing do same sex behaviors. If a person has homosexual activities with a young boy, then they are a homosexual pedofile. Jerry A. Sandusky is a homosexual pedofile-even if J.A. Sandusky calls himself straight, he would still be gay by behavior definition. But homosexual groups say that he is not gay when his conduct defines him as such.The priests who molest young boys are gay pedophiles. If a man has sex with little girls only, then he is a straight pedophile. Rush H. Limbaughâ€™s right when he said Jerry A. Sandusky is gay-and columnist Patrick J. Buchanan condemns who he calls gay priests. Those priests are again gay pedophiles, pederasts or homolesters. So there are many homosexual pedophiles such as the gay priests, Jerry A. Sandusky.

Again, itâ€™s sexual conduct or behavior which defines if 1 is straight or homosexual. Since homosexuals and lesbians (transexuals) often suffered childhood sex abuse, itâ€™s no surprise that homosexuals and lesbians think childhood sexual abuse is OK when itâ€™s homosexual activities. All homosexual pedofiles are homosexuals. All transexuals are homosexual/lesbian as the act of mutilating to become false opposite sex is itself an act of homosexuality/lesbianism-sad maiming and make this illegal. homosexual groups got offended when columnist Patrick J. Buchanan condemned gay priests. What those priests did when they molest young boys is homosexuality.

No, Abian,that is incorrect. Behavior does not determine if a person is gay or straight, it is who a person is attracted to that determines if they are gay or straight.

Many people who are not same sex attracted have engaged in same sex behavior for reasons that have nothing to do with attraction (such as in prison), just as many people who are exclusively same sex attracted have engaged in heterosexual acts in order to fit in with societal expectations or to hide their gayness for example.

Just because a pedophileâ€™s victim is the same sex does not mean a pedophile is gay. Many pedophiles are attracted to the lack of secondary sexual characteristics in children such as pubic hair, beards, breasts and so on. Most pedophiles whose victims are male say they were attracted to the hairlessness and other feminine features of their male victims. They are not attracted to maleness itself and so are not gay. Much of pedophilia has to do with opportunity so a pedophile that would be just as likely to molest a girl as a boy may only have male victims because people do not trust adult males with girls but do allow them access to boys so the male pedophiles victims male gender is a matter of opportunity, not choice.

Further, studies show that almost all male pedophiles (pedophelia by females is quite rare) consider themselves heterosexual and are in adult sexual relationships with women. So, when peopple make the claim that the majority of pedophilia is performed by gays and gays are many many times more likely to be pedophiles than heterosexuals they are wrong as virtually no men who identify themselves as gay have ever had sex with a child. Almost all pedophiles belong to the 90% or more of people considered heterosexual.

Studies show there is no relationship between sexual molestation and a person’s sexual orientation or a person’s transexualism or lack thereof. A child who is sexually molested is no more likely to end up same sex attracted or transexual than a child who has not been.

Abian, a person does not lack a sexual orientation until they have sex. People are gay or heterosexual when they are virgins. I’m sure you know this yourself, you knew whether you were gay or heterosexual before you ever had sex.

Once again, it is attractions that determine what a person’s sexual orientation is, not their behavior which can be coerced or determined by social situations.

Priya Lynn-you have a bad memory because I copy&paste the same things like this.

Again, if 1 does not define a person who has same sex relations with a young boy as gay, then they call him straight or something else. It depends on your definition. The priests who molest young boys are gay pedophiles. If a man has sex with little girls only, then he is a straight pedophile. RushH. Limbaughâ€™s right when he said Jerry A. Sandusky is gay and columnist Patrick J. Buchanan condemns who he calls gay priests. Those priests are gay pedophiles, pederasts or homolesters. So there are many homosexual pedophiles such as the gay priests, Jerry A. Sandusky. Though itâ€™s repeat it must be said again. A person is homosexual or lesbian if they knowingly and willing do same sex behaviors.

If a person has homosexual activities with a young boy, then they are a homosexual pedofile. Jerry A. Sandusky is a homosexual pedofile-even if J.A. Sandusky calls himself straight, he would still be gay by behavior definition. But homosexual groups say that he is not gay when his conduct defines him as such.

Again, itâ€™s sexual conduct or behavior which defines if 1 is straight or homosexual. Even if a person has had opposite sex relations, if they knowingly and willing do homosexual behavior, then theyâ€™re homosexuals and lesbians. Since homosexuals and lesbians (transexuals) often suffered childhood sex abuse, itâ€™s no surprise that homosexuals and lesbians think childhood sexual abuse is OK when itâ€™s homosexual activities. All homosexual pedofiles are homosexuals. All transexuals are homosexual/lesbian as the act of mutilating to become false opposite sex is itself an act of homosexuality/lesbianism-sad maiming and make this illegal. Yes, this is repeating but it must again be said that if a person has same sex conduct with young boys and girls then they are homosexual and lesbian pedofiles because again, itâ€™s the same sex conduct which defines. Asking me again will get you the same answer.

You need to read up on this Abian, you repeating falsehoods won’t make them true. You even seem to suspect the truth yourself when you say “Even if a person has had opposite sex relations, if they knowingly and willing do homosexual behavior, then theyâ€™re homosexuals and lesbians.”.

If sexual behavior determines sexual orientation as you assert then the person who has had opposite sex relations and then same sex sexual relations that person is bisexual.

Significant percentages of gay men will tell you they initially only had sex with women, they even married a woman and had sex exclusively with her but that after many years, or even decades they could no deny their same sex attractions, so they divorced and entered into a same sex romantic relationship. According to you that person was heterosexual and then became gay but all such men will tell you they were always gay, always only same sex attracted but engaged only in heterosexual sex out of shame.

And once again, pedophiles are not attracted to the gender of their victims, they are attracted to the immaturity of children and their lack of secondary sexual characteristics. They are attracted to smooth skin, small bodies, etc. A gay man is attracted to maleness, male secondary sexual characteristics, penises, beards, muscles, etc. Almost all pedophiles with male victims are in a heterosexual relationship with an adult female. Male pedophiles primarily have male victims because that is what opportunity provides them, not what they choose or prefer.

Box Turtle Bulletin posters such as Richard Rush, Ben in Oakland know that my name is Anirban (aka Abner) Bhattacharya and that I copy&paste the same things on sites such as Towleroad, etc. under different names. So here’s another copy&paste for you.

I support fertility treatments and I support In Vitro Fertilization. You need straight sex to create population. If homosexuality were to disappear then I would not lose sleep over that. Yes, I am holding homosexual behavior to a different standard.

I am not a Christian but there are topics where I agree with Christian groups. I agree with Christians on the dangers of gay/lesbian agenda and there are many non-Christians and even some atheists who agree with Evangelical Christians. With homosexuality, if 2 knowing and willing adults want to do gay/lesbian conduct but not tell others what to think, then itâ€™s their life. Homosexual/lesbian conduct is bad for health as smoking is and needs to be marginalized like smoking is. They must abolish sex change maimings. link between childhood sex abuse and adult homosexuality/lesbianism is old science and nothing new. It doesnâ€™t take an expert to know that sex abuse in youth can mess up the mind and cause people to behave in ways they normally wouldnâ€™t.

With â€˜homophobicâ€™, homophobia is telling truths which offend homosexual groups. Mainstream psychology/medicine is not to be trusted on gay/lesbian topic and too many people accept what is said w/o challenging or having doubts. Truth with homosexuality is any ideas, speculations and truths which offend homosexual groups is condemned as homophobia as thereâ€™s alot of ideology on this. With repair therapy for homosexuals/lesbians. Repair therapy for gays and lesbians who want to be straight must be available just as repair therapy must be available for a drug junky who wants to become clean. Yes, proof burden is on repair therapists, but if you arenâ€™t going to have repair therapy for homsexuality/lesbianism, then you may as well not have repair therapy for drug junkyism or drunkardism, because it often fails.

And Abian, gays and lesbians do not think child sexual abuse is okay. And children who are sexually abused are no more likely to end up gay or transexual than children who have not been sexually abused.

Most priests who sexually abused childen did so with adolescents so they were not by definition pedophiles, they are ephebophiles

Abian, you repeatedly claiming child molestation makes people gay or transexual does not make it true. This has been studied repeatedly and there is no connection between sexual orientation and transexuality and child abuse.

You are clearly very angry and feel justified in lying about gays, lesbians, transexualism and sexual orientation. Often people who are very upset by gayness are uncomfortable with their own same sex attractions and erroneously think vigorously and publicly fighting gays, lesbians, and transexuals will help suppress their own same sex attractions. It doesn’t, it just makes them very unhappy.

The American Psychiatric Assocation says same sex attracted people who positively accept their orientation are happier and better adjusted than those who do not.

You spreading lies and hate about LGBT people won’t have any effect on us. It might make you feel better in the short run but in the long run its just going to keep you unhappy.

A personal attack that people sometimes make against those who are against gay/lesbian behaviors is to accuse people of being homosexuals. They say this hoping for a reaction-talk of homosexual/lesbian is a good thing, yet call people gay as an insult.

Abian, I’m not insulting you by suggesting your anger and willingness to lie may be motivated by a desire to suppress your own same sex desires. I’m trying to encourage you to make peace with yourself and stop trying to spread hate, violence, and oppression against innocent LGBT people.

Peter Labarbera is widely considered a joke, even amongst the mainstream anti-gay people. His lies and absurdities are widely documented. You’re tying yourself to him by linking to his propaganda only discredits you further.

Only a very angry and unhappy man spends years of his time trying to encourage hate and oppression of people who haven’t harmed him or anyone else in anyway. Its been my experience that no one without unwanted same sex attractions has much concern about LGBT people. I was once self-loathing and railed against gays just like you do. I got real angry about gays and that anger did help blind me to my own same sex attractions but I was still a very unhappy person, much like you.

You know there’s no truth to the idea that LGBT people generally support child molestation, that’s just you making the most vicious attack on LGBT people that you’re capable of. It’s not working Abian. Opinion polls show an ever increasing majority of people think gayness is moral and support same sex marriage.

Please take a break from your anger, spend some time alone and think about what you’re really getting out of these attacks on people you know are innocent.
Do you hold these innocent people responsible for your own desires? Do you resent that they don’t feel bad about who they are when you do? Wouldn’t you really be happier if you accepted that there’s nothing wrong with gayness because two consenting adults in a same sex relationship hurts no one?

And Abian, have you ever heard of Stockhome syndrome? That’s where people who are being oppressed sometimes come to identify and sympathize with their oppressors. That’s why there’s a handful of gay people who make claims that gays are pedophiles and think pedophilia is fine, and gay marriage is evil and so on. They’re willing to lie about gays and lesbians despite being gay themselves because they so loathe themselves they desperately need the approval of people who hate gays and there’s few things anti-gay people love more than a gay person who’s willing to promote hate and oppression of gays.

Abian, you said “I guess I must also be a repressed drug junky since Iâ€™m against drug junkyism.”.

If you spent as much time railing about drug abuse and promoting hatred, lies, and violence against drug users I’d agree with that. But you don’t spend any time fighting drug use, you instead devote absurd amounts of energy to fighting the gayness – there’s a reason for that and its not because you’re heterosexual.

Can you tell me if there is a link between sexual abuse in a male between the ages of 8 and 10 and gender identity disorder? Could sexual abuse cause this disorder and if so can you direct me to some articles that deal with just that sort of circumstance?

Although we are uncertain as to what may cause gender dysphoria, I can say for certain that there is no reason to believe that sexual abuse at any age is responsible. I have worked with over 450 gender dysphoric individuals over the last 20 years and only a handful reported being abused as a child. In those cases the gender dysphoria the individuals experienced predated the abuse. Further more [sic] I have never read reports of sexual abuse being a determining factor. Recent evidence shows that the most probable cause is a congenital abnormality.

Dr. Hooker’s 1956 study was the first to be conducted without a polluted sample resulting in an illusory correlation.

It took the APA 17-18 years to finally correct the mistaken listing of homosexuality as a disorder.

No credible research since Hooker’s has shown that her conclusion was incorrect.

explanation:

Researchers before Hooker who looked at the issue of homosexuality being a mental disorder studied gay men with a history of treatment for mental illness. That was a polluted sample that resulted in the false (illusory) correlation between homosexuality and mental illness that formed the basis of the listing of homosexuality as a mental disorder in the DSM.

Hooker did something totally new. She specifically avoided a polluted sample and thus her findings showed the world the truth: homosexual men could not be differentiated vs. heterosexual men in terms of saneness.

It has been 59 years since Hooker’s research answered the question properly and histories like this article don’t even mention it.

Psychology should not be regarded in the same light as the real, hard, natural sciences, such as medicine.
It’s a social-science. A non-science.
It should be seen as a branch of philosophy or, perhaps, be taught by the same faculty who teach underwater basket-weaving.

The people that abused you may have been in good standing with the religioun based pseudo mental health organizations they worked for, but they most certainly weren’t in good standing with the secular American Pyschiatric Assocation, American Psychological Association, American Academy of Pediatrics or any other major mental or physical health organization. They all oppose attempts to change sexual orientation and its unethical for you to keep attempting to smear them with the abuse you suffered under religion based pseudo mental health organizations.

You couldn’t be more wrong. I could list many of these monsters, this vile filth who destroy gay children and teenagers who, today, are board certified.
It’s enough to give one name: George Alan Rekers.
Psychologists have their uses, so do underwater basket weavers. From what I experienced, the underwater basket weavers, at least, don’t claim that they are practicing science.
Sure, most practicing therapists and psychologists are decent human beings. Elevating their soft-science to the same level of authority as real medicine, driven by hard science, the natural sciences, is a mistake.

thanks for the reminder that homosexuality was considered a mental illness back in the days when America was strong and normal. They knew the truth and called a spade a spade. Its abnormal to insert a penis into a dark ditry hole that contains fecal matter, is not designed for insertion, and does not produce a child when inseminated.

Personally, Seth, I find it very abnormal that people obsess about sex acts that don’t involve them. I also find it very abnormal that the first place anti-gay people go is to someone else’s butt hole.

To think that, once the DSM changed, all medical professionals immediately fell into line with the new guidelines is ridiculous. NARTH is composed of medical professionals, and actually use the fact they’re doctors as an attempt to legitimize their “therapy.” I can also pretty much guarantee at least one of those doctors is “old school,” and has his electroshock therapy equipment close at hand.

While the overwhelming number of doctors, I’m sure, became doctors out of a desire to help people, being a “doctor” has always, also, appealed to those who want power or infamy… Josef Mengele truly beliieved his experiments at Auschwitz would lead to major medical advancements… and in the 1950s there was a world-wide debate concerning incorporating the advancements Mengele and his ilk had discovered: Was it, doctors argued, ethical of the medical profession to use the data on, say, transplants because of the manner in which that data and knowledge had been obtained?

In this original BTB Investigation, we unveil the tragic story of Kirk Murphy, a four-year-old boy who was treated for “cross-gender disturbance” in 1970 by a young grad student by the name of George Rekers. This story is a stark reminder that there are severe and damaging consequences when therapists try to ensure that boys will be boys.

When we first reported on three American anti-gay activists traveling to Kampala for a three-day conference, we had no idea that it would be the first report of a long string of events leading to a proposal to institute the death penalty for LGBT people. But that is exactly what happened. In this report, we review our collection of more than 500 posts to tell the story of one nation’s embrace of hatred toward gay people. This report will be updated continuously as events continue to unfold. Check here for the latest updates.

In 2005, the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote that “[Paul] Cameron’s ‘science’ echoes Nazi Germany.” What the SPLC didn”t know was Cameron doesn’t just “echo” Nazi Germany. He quoted extensively from one of the Final Solution’s architects. This puts his fascination with quarantines, mandatory tattoos, and extermination being a “plausible idea” in a whole new and deeply disturbing light.

From the Inside: Focus on the Family’s “Love Won Out”

On February 10, I attended an all-day “Love Won Out” ex-gay conference in Phoenix, put on by Focus on the Family and Exodus International. In this series of reports, I talk about what I learned there: the people who go to these conferences, the things that they hear, and what this all means for them, their families and for the rest of us.

Using the same research methods employed by most anti-gay political pressure groups, we examine the statistics and the case studies that dispel many of the myths about heterosexuality. Download your copy today!

Anti-gay activists often charge that gay men and women pose a threat to children. In this report, we explore the supposed connection between homosexuality and child sexual abuse, the conclusions reached by the most knowledgeable professionals in the field, and how anti-gay activists continue to ignore their findings. This has tremendous consequences, not just for gay men and women, but more importantly for the safety of all our children.

Anti-gay activists often cite the “Dutch Study” to claim that gay unions last only about 1½ years and that the these men have an average of eight additional partners per year outside of their steady relationship. In this report, we will take you step by step into the study to see whether the claims are true.

Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council submitted an Amicus Brief to the Maryland Court of Appeals as that court prepared to consider the issue of gay marriage. We examine just one small section of that brief to reveal the junk science and fraudulent claims of the Family “Research” Council.

The FBI’s annual Hate Crime Statistics aren’t as complete as they ought to be, and their report for 2004 was no exception. In fact, their most recent report has quite a few glaring holes. Holes big enough for Daniel Fetty to fall through.